Wrong Angel, Wrong Time
by SparxFlame
Summary: The Winchesters find themselves in a tight corner, Aziraphale's on vessel guard duty, and Crowley... is not having fun in America. Pub!verse


**A/N: For a fic request on tumblr from kayatara-art for pre-S4 Winchesters bumping into Aziraphale. It kind of got absorbed into the pub!verse, a massive Superwholock Omens AU me and Cales from tumblr have been working on - there's more information on my profile for anyone who wants it. Mild swearing and angst, but other than that... enjoy!**

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And so this is how it ends. Sam and Dean Winchester, backing up against a storage unit in the darkness, the snarls of too many demons to count coming at them from all sides. They weren't expecting this many, weren't even expecting demons – they'd thought it was a ghost, tied to the lock of hair inside a locket kept in one of these containers – and they're woefully underprepared. No way out. Dean can feel Sam's shoulder against his, feel the way his brother's trembling with adrenaline and fear and ragged breathing. "Hey, Sammy," he starts, voice little more than a low murmur.

He never knows what he was going to say, how he'd have ended that sentence, because at that moment every single floodlight in the area flares into being with white, blinding brilliance, and a noise like the climbing tone of a tumble dryer starts up. The demons hiss, a ripple of low words and discontent, and the tone rises, and rises, keeps on rising into an ear-splitting screech.

Dean and Sam drop their guns, slam their hands over their ears and even through that they can hear the noise – and the demons screaming. Whatever the sound is, it seems to hurt the black-eyed monsters more than it does humans. In under a minute, the screaming stops, and the screeching noise stops soon after.

When they hesitantly pull their hands away from their ears, blinking and squinting against the brightness that has now obliterated their night vision and left them totally blind, there is no sound. No hissing, no footsteps, nothing. Dean stiffens, wary, and knows Sam feels his sudden anxiety through where their shoulders are still touching. If they could see, they'd be exchanging looks.

"Oh, bother."

The voice is calm, educated and English, somehow authoritative and fatherly and vaguely ridiculous all at once. Sam jumps, and Dean swears under his breath and scrabbles at his jacket pocket for a gun, before remembering it's on the floor. He squints harder, narrowing his eyes to try and see through the light, but his eyes still haven't adjusted and he's basically blind which, even though he'll never admit it, _terrifies_ him.

"This is rather a mess, isn't it?" continues the voice mournfully, and there's the sound of footsteps and a dark, blurry oval – presumably the voice's owner – appears in Dean's line of vision. "I wasn't really supposed to get involved, I know, but I wasn't sure what else to do, and- oh, bother." The voice sighs heavily, as if the fact that it seems to have taken out maybe two-dozen demons is a minor irritation.

The idea that there's something out there that thinks wiping out a demonic horde is a _bother_ makes Dean's skin prickle.

"Uh... hello?" calls Sam, and from the shift beside him Dean thinks his brother may actually be _raising his hands_. He drives his elbow sideways, gets a gratifying grunt of pain – and, most likely, a bitchface he can't see yet – and the hands come down. "Thank you for that. Saving us. We're very grateful. Uhm, who are you?"

"_What_ are you?" growls Dean, eyes narrowed, and there's none of the awe or thanks that had been in Sam's voice, only flat, angry suspicion. He's had too many false friends, too many people helping and then demanding payment he won't give, to trust easily. He doesn't know how Sam manages it, but whatever his brother has, he doesn't. He just has hostility.

The figure doesn't seem offended, although it's hard to tell – Dean's eyes still haven't adjusted to the sudden flare of light, and he's starting to suspect that it's not really light, and that the white blindness he's currently experiencing is completely intentional.

"I am..." The voice pauses. "You can call me Azi, I suppose, although don't tell anyone. I'm not sure you're supposed to know that yet. I'm a friend, though." There's another pause, this one sounding more like amusement than a loss for words. "A guardian angel, of sorts." There's a chuckle, light and soft, as if Azi has just made some kind of private joke they're not privy to.

Dean snorts because, yeah, angels don't exist, and if they do he can't imagine why one would bother to guard a couple of washed-up hunters. Can't imagine why _anything_ supernatural would want to protect him and Sam, considering how much time they spend killing supernatural things. "Yeah. Right."

"What my brother means is," interrupts Sam hurriedly, and even though neither can see anything, Dean gets the strong impression of being glared at, "is that we're very grateful for you saving us. And if we could actually _see_ you, that'd be great?" He sounds equal parts hopeful, awed and slightly worried, and impressively difficult combination to pull off.

"Oh, no, I don't think so." Azi sighs, a soft rush of breath from somewhere in the white, and when he speaks again, his voice is so soft Dean wonders if they're even supposed to have heard it. "It's too soon, and it's not supposed to be me anyway... Honestly, as much as I love that child, he does drive me _crazy_, I told him, I _told_ him, but no, Cast-" Azi cuts himself off with a cough, the tone of his voice having risen steadily in his irritated self-monologue.

"No," he says finally, "I think it's best to leave it at this, don't you? Stops awkward questions and the like."  
"I think it just makes more of them," says Sam, a slightly mournful tone to his voice. He's bolder now he's fairly sure that, whatever this 'Azi' thing is, it's not here to kill them. "Please?"  
"No!" Azi sounds amused by their persistence, in the indulgent way an uncle puts up with his nephews' demands. "No, I think I'll be off now. _Do_ try not to get yourself killed again any time soon, as I said, it's not supposed to be me anyway, and I'm sure he's got the best intentions but he's young and rather unreliable, and I'm a little out of practice with the protector of the small role..."

Dean resists the urge to point out that neither of them are small, especially Sam. The painfully while light is dimming slowly and he can just make out a soft-looking human outline, a man with thick, blonde curls and a genial smile and what looks like _terrible_ dress sense, and there's something there, something just above his shoulders-

"Oh, next time you see Crowley, tell him not to forget who he used to be, would you? Nothing is permanent, and I think he forgets that sometimes..." The face of the half-visible figure twitches briefly, and there's a deep, aching sadness, infinite and incomprehensible, in his voice, and Dean opens his mouth to shout but Azi's already gone.

"Who are you?" he yells anyway, into the now normally-lit courtyard, the floodlights on and turning everything a dirty yellow, making shadows crawl and shift around the storage units. "How do you know that bastard?" But there's no one there.

Sam swears softly, and runs a frustrated hand through his hair with a sigh. Dean curses loudly and inventively, stomping an angry circle into the concrete for a few minutes, glowering at the bodies of the demons as if they're entirely responsible for his anger – and, to be fair, they pretty much are.

He probably would continue pacing until the security guards turn up to check out the flashing lights and snarls, but then the bodies start _moving_. A woman about ten feet away groans and lets her eyes flutter open. Sam's first reaction is to reach for his gun, as is Dean's, but then the woman lurches into a sitting position and gasping for breath, eyes wide and terrified, and there's no way that's faked. Whatever Azi was, he appears to have exorcised them.

The woman looks at them in horror for a moment, and Dean thinks about reaching out to her, but then she stumbles to her feet and staggers off at a drunken run, disappearing between the storage units and out of sight, and Sam murmurs, "Probably best to get out of here," and Dean can't disagree with that. He shoves his gun back into his jacket pocket, glances over the bodies still on the floor and wishes them luck, and then turns and leaves with Sam.

**xXx**

The next time they meet up with the king of the crossroads it's nearly six months later. He's setting up a human sacrifice – well, has set up, actually, the blood sigils are written and the victim's tied to an altar, and Crowley's standing over him with a rather beautiful knife. Dean and Sam have their guns out and are tossing around the usual treats and snark, Crowley giving as good as he gets and looking almost like he's _enjoying_ it, when Dean remembers the mysterious saviour.

He doesn't mention a name, just relays the message, but even so the reaction it gets is rather staggering. Crowley's eyes widen, the colour drains from his face, and his lips part ever so slightly. There's something there, something old and impossible, something like a cross between a wound and a memory, and Dean gets the feeling he's just stuck his fingers in it and twisted.

The thought gives him a vindictive sort of pleasure, especially when Crowley makes a quiet, broken sound and disappears, the knife clattering to the altar just inches from the sacrifice-to-be's ribs.

**xXx**

Thousands of miles away, an angel changes the sign on the door of his bookshop from _open_ to _closed_, and stands with a hand pressed against his window for a second. The sun scrapes the top of London's skyline, making the sky flare pinkish-purple wobble orange. He breathes out a low sigh, before pulling his eyes away from the sight and turning back into the shop interior.

"He'll come back," he murmurs to the pot plant that sits on his front counter, looking vaguely mournful and considerably less healthy than it had under its previous owner. "I'm sure he will. And he'll have an explanation, I know, it's just..." He sighs. "Hard." The word is quiet, whispered, and Aziraphale reaches a hand up to drag a finger along one of the plant's leaves. "Ah well."

He turns and leaves, walking through to the back room. He'll make some tea, he decides, find that new book he got at the auction last week and will sit in his room until the sun rises or his tea grows cold, whichever happens first – angelic powers are useful sometimes.

Behind him, the wilted forget-me-not straightens slightly, a tiny bud forming on the top and blooming into a minute, blue-purple flower. It lasts for barely a minute, before the miracle wears off and it wilts again, leaves browning even further than they had before. Aziraphale doesn't see.

**xXx**

Thousands of miles away, a demon drops his head to his chest and hauls in a deep breath, feeling the beginnings of a headache scratching at his temples. The effort of sending a miracle – even one so tiny – across an entire ocean is exhausting. Not that he needs to sleep, but he enjoys it, and can feel fatigue all the same.

It was a ridiculous thing to do. Hopeful and irrational and ridiculous. The plants have probably been given away, or died – he doesn't hold out much hope that his angel's managed to keep any of them alive, he doesn't have the heart of steel necessary for the regimented discipline of plant growing.

Nonetheless, as he curls slightly deeper into his chair and reaches for another shot of whiskey, he hopes against hope that the angel saw.


End file.
